A quick note to say that DVDflick worked. I got the video's made - just in a nick of time (bc. I have a full day conference tomorrow). Now my daughter can bring her friend the videos (and scrapbook). DVDflick was amazingly easy compared to other things I tried. Once on the program, I printed the 6 page guide - which explained most of what I needed to know. Two things I had to figure out myself - and am posting here for others who may try this. 1 - on the Configure your Project tab, there are settings for video. If you want to change the resolution/file size (as I did to fit a 45 minute video on a standard dvd), you can adjust the bit rate). 2 - I would recommend on the burning settings (also under configure your project tab), choose to have it burn it to dvd, and verify, and eject. The first dvd I made I only selected burn it and verify. It burned it - ejected, reinserted and played it. But then the dvd tray was locked and couldn't be opened. This is somewhat frequent occurence with disc burning software - which wants to prevent you from accidentally opening the tray before it's done. The only way I could open the tray was to shut the computer, and hit the open disk tray button as it was rebooting. The next video I made, I selected eject when done - and it ejected it. For a while I thought the tray was broken - and tried the usual methods to release - like the paper clip in the tiny hole near the tray. And going to my computer, d:, eject disk. Nothing worked bc. the software was preventing it. Once my disk was ejected - and the software closed, the open and close tray works fine with other programs. Thanks so much. This was a great program. Just curious if convertxtodvd would get me additional features. I can see burning many dvd's for people (we seem to be the videographers of many social gatherings and I'd like to give dvd's to people who were part of the plans). DVDflick worked great - but I don't mind paying a little if it gets me more features. Any thoughts? Thanks so much. You saved me. Lynn.

Loralee, regardless of the software you will eventually settle on, you will need to use multiple DVD's unless you opt for an external hard drive. I suggest that you take an afternoon and use a disk burning application (I can't stand Roxio, more on this later) to back up the files and folders of your choosing. If your DVD writer is capable, use double layered DVD-R's as they are 8.5 GB each. Then, get in the habit of backing up new files to dvd on a regular basis. A real simple solution would be to buy an external USB or Firewire hard drive and copy over your precious files, though I would still make DVD's and put them away. Most, if not all, external drives come with some sort of "back-up" software. As Ravencajun suggests, Trueimage is pretty good. I do not recommend anything by Roxio as their software has proven to conflict with hardware drivers and also creates problems when installed with other software. It doesn't play well with other software. I have made many repairs to friends and family computers that Roxio has caused. There are many other cd/dvd burning software solutions available, I am partial to Nero. I also suggest Total Commander as a file manager. It far exceeds the capability of Windows Explorer and once you use it, you'll never look back. If you get an external hard drive and use total commander, you'll be done in no time at all. Good luck.

The full version will be able to do everything you can do now and will also be able to do some additional things. If you don't need those features, you can ignore them and use the software as you used the old free version. The link you gave is for Roxio 2009 (if they had continued numbering sequentially, it would be version 11). One additional feature it has over the basic is that it can burn DVDs from Tivo and convert Tivo files to play on mobile devices. You can get the full version 9 for around $25 on ebay (it also does Tivo to DVD, but I don't think it does the auto-convert to ipod thing).

Thanks everyone. I did try to disable the programs Owbist recommended from the startup. It suggested I reboot - which I did, but it also said that access was denied and I might have to log in as the system administrator to make some of those changes. I have no idea how to log in as system administrator. This is my computer and I'm the only one who uses it, but a computer tech guy did set it up for me a year ago - and I don't know if he set me up as administrator or not. How can I check this out. [This is a separate question, but may be related. I think I need to log on as system administrator and secure my network - and find out my network's name and password. Again, I don't remember setting this up - but perhaps the tech guy did and asked me to pick a password and name - I think I would know which password I would have picked if he asked me. He might have had me type it in. I'm having trouble keeping my new laptop connected - and it is asking me the name of the network and other information. Sorry - I probably shouldn't ask this here, but I think it's related to logging on as system administrator]. Anyway, now when I start the computer, I have to go through a series of prompts to acknowledge that this is not the default start up. So this isn't saving time to get up and running. I'm sure there's another way to do this. I don't think I use real player - but how would I know what I use if I'm on a site like Amazon or Youtube and listen to a clip/video. If I'm not using realplayer, is there a default windows media player (I vaguely recall this) that gets used. Which is the best default music player to have? Is there any reason I would want to keep realplayer? Can I always get it later for free if I realize later I want it? Ravencajun - I do have revouninstaller and got a list of programs on the pc. But I don't know how to view what starts at boot up? When i tried to press "Hunter" mode, it just exists revo uninstaller. I was able to click on the programs and see that there are other probably useless ones - like netzero, earthlink set up files, - but when I click the link to google them, many sites state it's crapware and should be removed, but yahoo answers said best to leave it and be sure. So I don't know and haven't yet figured out how to get revo uninstaller to make suggestions. If I have revo uninstaller, would the WinPatrol still be good to run in addition? Can you tell me what you mean by disbling some of the startup programs in services rather than in msconfig? Not sure how to do that. Thanks. Lynn.